When I took over the
I.E.s job I was told to use a, "15 minute allowance for Delays." Is this the
correct amount or it there another number that is more applicable? F.R.
Utah When I took over the
I.E.s job I was told to use a, "15 minute allowance for Delays." Is this the
correct amount or it there another number that is more applicable? F.R.
Utah
INDUSTRY ADVISOR
THE GREAT
15 MINUTE GIVE-A-WAY
By Gene Levine - www.genelevine.com
Does your company have 15 minute built-in allowances for Machine Delay and/or
Waiting Time? If you do, the following discussion is aimed at you because it is in the
area of "how much" those allowances should be that a great disparity exists
among industrial managers and engineers.
The "Select Time" for an operation contains no allowances. Select time is merely the time that a qualified worker needs to perform a job without interruptions. However, workers do take and need additional time for bundle handling, personal needs, rest and for reasons beyond their control (delays). We therefore must compensate workers for these occurrences (whether or not we observed them during the time study). Allowance factors are recognition that in a normal, productive day, a certain percentage of time is lost because of avoidable and unavoidable reasons.
One thing regarding allowances continually baffles me. It the built-in allowance that some companies have in their rate structure. Upon learning that a company does have built-in allowances I will ask (during my in-house visitations or at my seminars); "How much is your built Machine Time allowance?" The answer inevitably is, "15". When I further ask, "How was the 15 minutes arrived at?" I am usually told, exactly what you were told and that is, "Who knows, it was here when I got here!"
Unless I’ve missed something, why is it always 15 minutes? Why not 5, 20 or no minutes? Why do I also find that usually when 15 minutes Machine Time is built-in, there is also 15 minutes built-in for Waiting Time? There have never been a single case, where a manager or engineer was able to justify these built-in allowances by producing random, ratio-delay studies. These allowances are just given, no questions asked!
If you have 15 minutes built-in then you probably do not require your operators to advise you that they had Machine Time, or Waiting Time, until their cumulative time goes beyond 15 minutes. Consider this scenario; yesterday, your 100 operators each had exactly 14 minutes machine time. Today when you look at yesterday’s production you see that it’s down you ask your supervisors, "What happened?" They truthfully respond, "We had a lot of machine time." Yet, when you look at the Daily Off-Standard Time Report there’s not one minute showing (when in fact you lost about 3 operators worth of production for the day).
Just how much true machine time does any factory have? Well, unless you pay from the first minute you may never know. It’s hard to put mechanics on any kind of incentive unless they have and know the goal. A good incentive for mechanics would be to base it on reducing true machine down-time (which is what they get paid to do anyway).
Going one step further, an engineer’s prime responsibility is to increase production and reduce costs. Apathetic engineers argue that a built-in allowance is fair. Scrutiny proves otherwise. Let’s use a factory with 100 machine operators each of whom gets an automatic 15 minutes a day for Machine Time. Let’s also say that the average pay of the operators is $7.00 per hour. That means that each operator receives $1.75 per day for the 15 minutes whether s/he incurred Machine Delay or not.
The dollar cost to the company – using the above illustration – is therefore $1.75 X 100 = $175.00 per day X 5 = $875.00 weekly X 50 = $43,750 annually. Annual lost hours = $43,750 ¸ $7.00 = 6,250 hours, the equivalent of 3 operators. Double those figures if Waiting Time also have a built-in 15 minute allowance. Therefore, whenever built-in allowances are unfounded and unjustified they should be eliminated and replaced with a allowances program more beneficial to both the employees and company.
Paying from the first minute could suggest a new way for operators to take advantage of the company. Closer examination will show a different scenario presents itself – even if they do. Paying from the first minute will spotlight many opportunities. For example, for purposes of this article, let’s say you . . .
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